Is he the right person to write your letter? Look to those teachers with whom you've formed relationships in 11th and 12th grade.

Written by

Elizabeth Heaton
| USA Today College

Recommendation letters are an important component of many college applications, but sometimes students focus on the wrong things when choosing their writers.

As a former admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania, I read thousands of recommendation letters and witnessed the bad choices many applicants made when it came time to select the authors of these all-important missives. Read on for my advice about avoiding these pitfalls.